The face of copywriting in the 21st century

Copywriting has taken on a different face at the moment compared to just 19 years ago. It is only the latest phase of the constant evolution of the techniques that brands make use of in order to promote themselves. The method for brand messaging has shifted from TV, print, and radio in the 1950s to digital in the 2000s.

At the beginning of the millennium, digital was a minuscule part of marketing budgets. As online and digital channels have increased their user base and engagement, digital marketing has become an essential tool for offline and e-commerce businesses.

SEO’s contribution to copywriting

SEO (search engine optimisation) is another element which makes current copywriting practices so separate from what they were in earlier generations. The online text needs to prove to its gatekeeper, Google, that it is the best result for a user’s specific search query.

How Google determines strong SEO has changed considerably over the past decade as the search engine introduces routine algorithm updates. Current copywriting practices should follow SEO best practices. For Google, that means giving the most appropriate search results for a query.

In part, the search engine makes use of humans in order to look at websites and determine if the content (text, videos, imagery) meets Google’s quality rater guidelines. Consequently, the adage seems to be true: content is king, and quality content is essential.

What is Google’s Panda update?

Panda is the official title of an algorithm released by Google update which was developed in order to reduce the occurrence of low-quality, weak content in the search results as well as to reward unique as well as compelling content. When Panda was launched, user complaints about the growing influence of “content farms” were becoming widespread.

Google’s Panda algorithm give pages a quality classification, which is utilised internally and modelled after human quality ratings. Then that is incorporated as a ranking factor.

What triggers Panda?

The items on the following list trigger Google’s Panda algorithm:

• Thin content – This refers to weak pages with very little appropriate or substantial text as well as resources, such as a set of pages which describes a number of health conditions with only a few sentences that appear on each page.
• Duplicate content – If content is duplicated it means that it is copied content which appears on the Internet, in several places. Duplicate content issues can also appear on your own website when you have multiple pages that feature the same text with little or no difference.
• Lack of authority/trustworthiness – Content which is produced by sources that are not considered definitive or verified. A Google representative stated that websites aiming to avoid Panda’s impact should work towards become recognised as authorities on their topic and entities to which a human user would feel comfortable giving their credit card information.
• Low-quality user-generated content (UGC) – An example of this formof low-value User Generated Content would be a blog which publishes guest blog posts that are short, full of spelling and grammatical errors and devoid of authoritative information.

Websites which recover from the impact of Panda do so by redoing pages with low-quality content and adding new high-quality content, taking out filler words and above the fold ads. In general, they improve the user experience as it relates to content.

Whether you write for businesses — even if it’s blog posts or articles — remember that what you write must assist with building authority as well as encouraging sales. If you don’t, your project will likely end. When you’re bidding for business writing jobs, make sure to remind customers of the value that your copy brings to their business. Remember: What you write assists companies to make more money.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

If you would like to become a copywriter then you need to do our National Diploma in Copywriting. For more information, please follow this link.